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Eighteenth-century Charleston, South Carolina, was steeped in luxury and slavery and proved an awkward home for the small community of Quaker merchants who did business there in the early 1770s. These travelers experienced profound displacement as they grappled with the lived experience of cosmopolitanism. In striving for worldly acceptance, universal humanity, or both, “port Quakers” and other people of the Atlantic world faced stark choices. Some, such as Joseph Atkinson, pursued profit and gentility; others, such as Samuel Rowland Fisher, retreated into insularity and particularism; a third group, such as William Dillwyn, aspired to activism and transatlantic reform. Atkinson, Fisher, and Dillwyn all experienced disorientation and frustration—something more than homesickness—as life in Charleston confronted them with the pluralism of the Atlantic world.

Hamilton: An American Musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda and director Thomas Kail is both an intriguing and imperfect vehicle for understanding the history of the American Revolutionary Era. Although the show simplified the image of Alexander Hamilton and focused on an elite narrative of the American Revolution, the show is not meant to be strict history. Instead the show benefits historians with an imaginative retelling for a contemporary audience, invites multiple interpretations of history, and encourages further conversation.

In a 1957 essay on the Revolution, Morgan argued for an analysis of \"the ideas that enabled men of that age to stand as the architects of modern liberty\" (CAR, 59).* Although he conceded, two years later, that U.S. history \"would lose some of its richness and excitement if we confined our study to such respectable and eminent persons,\" such persons made up the bulk of his writing, particularly in the latter half of his career (AH, 36). Like Samuel Eliot Morison, his undergraduate mentor, Morgan wanted a past that was both usable and reliable.3 Morgan encouraged his students to begin with documentary evidence rather than theoretical models, and his documentary evidence largely came from the papers of religious and political leaders.4 Such methods led to an emphasis on personal forces.

The people of Boston dramatically rejected the Tea Act of 1773. This article imbricates Boston within the intercolonial, trans-Atlantic, and global networks that sustained its commerce. Like New Yorkers and Philadelphians, Bostonians smuggled tea and other commodities (sometimes called the \"Dutch trade\") and joined the colonial nonimportation agreements. Unlike their counterparts, however, some Boston merchants had also violated the agreements by continuing to import British tea. This article argues that Atlantic smugglers trading with the Netherlands and other European nations helped create the conditions for the Boston Tea Part and helped provoke it.

A significant fraction of New York City burned in the early morning hours of September 21, 1776, six days after the British army had occupied the city during the Revolutionary War. This paper examines the evidence to determine the cause of the fire, and argues that Patriots were responsible. Loyalists and British military men were almost unanimous in their conviction that American rebels had torched the city on their way out, but the rebels insisted that the fire had been an accident. Before the fire, General Nathanael Greene argued that destroying the city was strategically essential, but the Continental Congress was unwilling to risk the new nation's reputation, and ordered General George Washington to leave the city intact. Since the war, American historians have accepted these denials (and subsequent Patriot propaganda) and avoided attributing the fire to Patriot spies or civilian sympathizers. Rather than admit to burning towns, the Patriots concealed their actions to contemporaries and for posterity.

During the American Revolution, firefighting was not necessarily a predictor of political stance; nevertheless, as prominent members of the community, firefighters often publicly proclaimed their allegiance for or against the policies of the imperial government. In this way, these organized societies came to play an active and critical role in urban Revolutionary mobilization.